Proton Technologies

Proton Technologies AG is a Swiss technology company originally founded as ProtonMail on 16 May 2014. It was started by a group of scientists from CERN with the goal of making online privacy 'possible again',[1][2] Proton is located in Geneva, Switzerland under the protection of Swiss privacy laws.[3][4]

Proton Technologies
Formerly
ProtonMail
FoundedMay 16, 2014 (2014-05-16) in Geneva, Switzerland
Headquarters
Geneva
,
Switzerland
Brands
  • ProtonMail
  • ProtonVPN
  • ProtonCalendar (beta)
  • ProtonDrive (planned, Q4 '20)          ‏‏‎ ‎
Website

ProtonMail released ProtonVPN in 2017, becoming Proton Technologies (or simply "Proton"), to good reception.[5][6] In January 2020, Proton became the first VPN service to be fully open source.[7][8][9]

History and brands

As ProtonMail

After a year of crowdfunding, ProtonMail was released publicly on 16 May 2014 into beta[10] as an end-to-end encrypted email service. It got so much traffic within the first 3 days, that it had to temporarily suspend its public beta program.[11] ProtonMail 2.0 was released 14 August 2015, including a rewritten codebase, and, at the same time, becoming open source.[12]

ProtonMail and ProtonVPN

On 22 May 2017, upon the release of ProtonVPN, "ProtonMail" (the company) became Proton Technologies, with ProtonMail becoming a subsidiary alongside ProtonVPN. As of 1 May 2020, it has 20 million active users, and is accessible online through the Tor net and clearnet, and its dedicated iOS and Android apps.

After over a year of crowdfunding, ProtonMail released ProtonVPN on 22 May 2017; a secure VPN service provider.[13] Simultaneously, ProtonMail became Proton Technologies AG. Since then, it has gained popularity through its strict no-logging policy, location in Switzerland, and prevention of DNS and WebRTC IP address leak age, and currently

On 21 January 2020, Proton Technologies announced that ProtonVPN would now be open source, to allow independent security experts to analyze it, becoming the first VPN service to do so.[14] Proton also announced that an independent security audit had been conducted.[15]

As of 1 May 2020, ProtonVPN had a total of 809 servers, located in 50 different countries, all owned and operated by Proton itself.[16][17]

ProtonCalendar (beta)

Opened to public beta on 30 December 2019, ProtonCalendar is an alternative to services like Google Calendar and iCal, and will be the first fully encrypted calendar app. As of 1 January 2020, it is available to paid subscribers of ProtonMail.[18][19][20]

Future

According to various statements made by Proton as well as through various other sources, announced by ProtonMail, there is a cloud storage solution called ProtonDrive in development with a planned release date of Q4 2020 and beta release date of Q3 2020.[21][22][23][24][25][26][27]

Location and security

Both ProtonMail and ProtonVPN are located in Switzerland to avoid any surveillance[28] or information requests from countries under the Fourteen Eyes, and/or under government surveillance laws like the U.S.'s Patriot Act or outside the bounds of law. They are also located in Switzerland because of its strict privacy laws that protect users' privacy.[29]

Funding

Proton Technologies is supported by FONGIT; a non-profit foundation, notably financed through a division of the Switzerland government; the "Swiss Federal Commission for Technology and Innovation".

Proton is also supported by its community through donations and paid subscriptions to either ProtonVPN or ProtonMail.

Paid ProtonVPN notably includes access to all of its countries rather than the free '3' and access to the Tor network, as well as more security and peer-to-peer networking support (i.e. torrenting).

References
  1. O'Luanaigh, Cian (23 May 2014). "CERN inspires entrepreneurs for email encryption". CERN. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
  2. "About ProtonMail". ProtonMail. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  3. "Why Protonmail is in Switzerland? An Analysis of Swiss Privacy Laws". ProtonMail Blog. 19 May 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  4. "ProtonVPN Review: A Secure VPN Or Seriously Overhyped?". Restore Privacy. 10 December 2019. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  5. May 2020, Mike Williams 21. "ProtonVPN review". TechRadar. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  6. "ProtonVPN Review: A Secure VPN Or Seriously Overhyped?". Restore Privacy. 10 December 2019. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  7. "ProtonVPN goes open source to build trust". BetaNews. 21 January 2020. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  8. January 2020, Paul Wagenseil 27. "ProtonVPN goes open-source: What this means for your privacy". Tom's Guide. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  9. Prakash, Abhishek. "ProtonVPN Applications are Now 100% Open Source - It's FOSS". ItsFOSS. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  10. "ProtonMail, the Easy-to-Use Encrypted Email Service, Opens Up to the Public". 17 March 2016.
  11. "Über-Secure ProtonMail Beta Maxes Out Servers in Just 60 Hours". Infosecurity Magazine. 22 May 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  12. Admin (13 August 2015). "ProtonMail goes Open Source with version 2.0". ProtonMail Blog. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  13. "ProtonVPN - About Us". ProtonVPN. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  14. Osborne, Charlie. "ProtonVPN apps handed to open source community in transparency push". ZDNet. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  15. "ProtonVPN goes open source to build trust". BetaNews. 21 January 2020. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  16. "ProtonVPN - Stats". ProtonVPN. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  17. May 2020, Mike Williams 21. "ProtonVPN review". TechRadar. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  18. "The ProtonCalendar beta is available now!". ProtonMail Blog. 30 December 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  19. "New technical measures to unblock Proton apps". ProtonMail Blog. 12 March 2020. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  20. Schiffer, Zoe (1 January 2020). "ProtonMail just added an encrypted calendar to its encrypted Gmail competitor". The Verge. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  21. Montoya, Edu (11 May 2020). "ProtonDrive price, release date and review". Medium. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  22. ProtonMail (28 January 2019). "Yes, we do! ProtonDrive is currently on our roadmap. It's a complex project so we cannot give a fixed release date. But be sure to follow our social media channels for news and updates". @protonmail. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  23. ProtonMail (27 February 2020). "We're working on ProtonDrive right now, and the ETA is the end of 2020". @ProtonMail. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  24. Neowin ·, Paul Hill. "ProtonMail firm receives €2M from EU to develop its ecosystem". Neowin. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  25. "ProtonDrive price, release date and review". Privacy Online. 27 November 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  26. "ProtonDrive Survey". ProtonMail Blog. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  27. "New technical measures to unblock Proton apps". ProtonMail Blog. 12 March 2020. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  28. "ProtonMail launched ProtonVPN as a secure and free VPN service". ProtonVPN Blog. 20 June 2017. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  29. ProtonVPN. "About Us". About ProtonVPN.
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